Let's get it right: race and justice 2000 - Nacro

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Let’s get it rightCHAPTER6Suspects anddefendants‘Approaching the millennium, and associety becomes even more diverse,all forces need to reaffirm theircommitment to securing the supportof all sections of the public theyserve. This is a founding principle ofthe police service and was reiteratedby Lord Scarman nearly 20 years ago.It is in danger of being subordinated,and possibly lost, to newdevelopments and what may be seenas conflicting priorities which are notsynchronised with wider publicaspirations.‘It is the view of HM Inspector,however, that a commitment toimproving community and racerelations is not in conflict with thepolice’s responsibilities for tacklingcrime and maintaining law and order.Rather it is a pre-requisite for doing soeffectively.’‘Winning the Race’, HM Inspector ofConstabulary, 1997Until 1994, the police were not represented on NACRO’sRace Issues Advisory Committee. This was because,when it was first established in 1983, the Committee feltthat in the aftermath of the disturbances in Brixton andother cities in 1981 and the subsequent report by LordScarman, a great deal of attention was being focussed onthe police and a programme of action to implement theScarman recommendations was under way.Because the police are usually the first contact point forthe public – as victims of crime, or as suspects – policeforces tended to attract the most criticism while thecourts, the prisons, the probation services and, after 1986,the CPS tended to escape attention. The Committeewanted to make sure these agencies were not overlooked.Recent developments – the results of ethnic monitoring,new research studies, and crucially, the Stephen LawrenceInquiry Report – have put the spotlight firmly on thepolice once more. This chapter begins by looking atpolice and community relations; but the work of the CPS,the legal professions and the courts is, again, notforgotten.The under-representation of people from minoritycommunities as professionals working in the criminaljustice agencies is in stark contrast to their overrepresentationat every key stage as suspects andoffenders. For them, the demarcation lines betweenagencies, and subtle distinctions about who does what, arenot important. It is just the ‘system’: a system that isperceived by many – both black and white – to be unfairand discriminatory.It is important that criminal justice agencies worktogether, to deliver justice and equality in a seamlessprocess from first contact with the police to disposal atcourt. Much of this chapter is about the police; butunderlying principles of the approach apply just as muchto the other agencies concerned.The police‘Winning the Race’, the Chief Inspector of Constabulary’s1997 report, provides an impressive list of steps takensince 1981 by the Home Office, the Association of ChiefPolice Officers (ACPO), and individual police forces toimprove police and community relations. Immediatelyafter the Scarman report in 1981, the police staff collegebegan to provide courses on policing and ethnic28
RACE AND JUSTICE 2000CHAPTER 6 SUSPECTS AND DEFENDANTSminorities. The following year, 1983, the Home Officeestablished a Specialist Support Unit to provide training,firstly at Brunel University, and from 1989 at Turvey inBedfordshire. Training has continued to the present day.However, as the previous chapter showed, it had not beenas successful as expected and the Chief Inspector’sreports include a series of recommendations to givetraining more bite.The annual Holly Royde seminar on race, communityrelations and policing has been held by the Home Officefor over 20 years. It enables officers – usually middle tosenior managers – to develop action plans to deal withissues of concern in their own force. It has produced somevaluable local initiatives – one of which is described laterin chapter 8. However, according to ‘Winning the Race’:‘… in many instances, officers who had spent aweek at the Holly Royde Conference … workingup action plans on community and race relationstopics were unsupported in implementing these ontheir return to the force, or worse, were moved toother posts before they could see them through.’Community consultationCommunity and Police Consultative Groups (CPCGs)were established under s106 of the 1984 Police andCriminal Evidence Act. One of Scarman’s keyrecommendations was to set up forums to enable bettercommunication and consultation with local communities.Experience of s106 committees is variable. Some play animportant role in providing a channel of communicationto the police. Others, however, tend to include mostlymiddle-aged, middle class residents; there are fewmembers of minority groups and hardly any young peopleat all.According to the 1998 Glidewell review of the CPS:‘Police community committees are often useful butare often criticised on the ground that discussion isat too low a level and too parochial. It is oftendifficult to encompass some pressure groups (eg inproblematical inner city areas which tend to shunthese and other formal or semi-formal groupings).’Some CPCGs, such as Lambeth, are trying to tackle thisby establishing youth forums and black issues groups.Lay visitors schemes to encourage inspection of policecells were also introduced after the Scarman report.Neighbourhood Watch and other crime preventioninitiatives also involve community consultation.But are these channels of communication reaching thosewho have the most confrontational or conflictual contactswith the police? And is the consultation a two-wayprocess? Consultation can have different meanings forpolice and for the public. A Home Office evaluation ofOperation Eagle Eye – a Metropolitan Police campaign totarget street robbery that was launched with muchcontroversy in 1995 – had this to say about consultation:‘ … many community representatives said thattheir main source of information about Eagle Eyewas the media and were concerned that theOperation had been launched prior to, rather thanfollowing, consultation with important interestgroups …These rather negative perceptionsconflict with the MPS’s view of the adequacy ofthe consultative process. From the MPSperspective, consultation with the community wasboth extensive and appropriately timed.’The consultation concerned had included CPCGs and thestrategy had been set out in the MPS policing plan.Community leaders had been invited to a meeting withthe Commissioner. Consultation continued after thelaunch, again with CPCGs at divisional level. However,the report continues:‘The opposing views of the consultative processappear to derive both from different interpretationsof the term “consultation” … the dominant viewamong community representatives interviewed wasthat there had been inadequate discussion of theproposed action against street robbery or itsimplications for community relations … the timingof the meeting with the Commissioner …accentuated the view that its aim was to impartinformation about plans and tactics which hadalready been formulated rather than to consultabout options well in advance of anyannouncement.’Recent changes to the structure of police authorities, andthe new Police Authority for London which is to beestablished, extend community representation.The police and local authority crime preventionpartnerships in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 are29
Page 1 and 2: Let’sget itrightRace and Justice
Page 3 and 4: ContentsForeword page 21 A decade o
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Page 65 and 66: BIBLIOGRAPHYBland et al (1999), ‘
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